Roughly 12,000 children in Khuzestan province, southwest Iran, are being deprived of their education and, according to Zeinab Fathali Poor, an expert in Khuzestan’s Social Welfare Bureau, many of them are prevented from attending school just because they don’t have shoes.

Unemployment and poverty have become so rampant in Iran that a young Olympic athlete has been forced to work as a porter to make ends meet; carrying heavy loads across mountainous paths, often under threat of death from the elements or the Regime’s agents.

According to a state expert, close to a quarter of Iran’s population are rural residents, and consequently, there is an increasing rate of child labour witnessed as Kolbars (humans used as carriers) and vendors (selling items in the street).

According to official government reports, there are nearly 2 million child workers in Iran now, and according to “unofficial reports, 7 million”.

One Iranian man died in Shiraz on October 21 after eating rotten food from a trashcan, a chilling example of the prevalence of poverty in Iran. Many in Iran are now so poor that they have to resort to digging through the garbage to find food to eat or resources to sell on, including young children.

Iran has the third or fourth largest oil reserves, the second largest gas reserves, and is in the top 15 mineral producing countries in the world, but only 1% of the world’s population. This should make the country and its people rich, but according to Iran Human Rights Monitor, over 80% of Iranians live below the poverty line and the middle class has all but disappeared.